About

What is Waiting for an Echo?

Waiting for an Echo is a blog that offers a space to reflect and exchange ideas, as well as a meeting place for editors, authors, researchers, students and readers of academic books and scientific journals published by university presses. It is an open, democratic forum where people can discuss how texts are edited, the quality of their content, and what is being published in the university domain.

The aim of the blog is also to help academic texts resonate with readers outside the world of the universities, the classrooms, and the pages of the books where they are published—in short, to produce an echo.

What can be found in Waiting for an Echo?

The blog publishes short articles, reviews, analysis and discussions about editing, academic books and journals related to any discipline or field of knowledge. It has four sections:

Editors: Writings about the current editorial world, the university publishing industry or sector, book fairs and other topical issues.

Insight: Discussions about subjects concerning editors, writers and readers of academic texts. This section also looks at research and literature about publishing, academic writing and the role of the editor.

Authors: Short articles by authors about their own texts, or about topics related to texts published by university presses (books or articles).

Reviews: Critical reviews or analysis written by professors, researchers and readers about books, chapters or recent articles published by university presses.

How to publish in Waiting for an Echo?

If you have an idea or a draft article, note or review, send a proposal of up to 100 words to esperandoeleco@ucc.edu.co. Indicate which section of the blog the text is aimed at, and whether you are a professor, researcher, editor, author of a book or published article, student or reader.

If you have already written an unpublished text, and you believe it would be of interest to readers of the blog, ensure that it complies with the submission guidelines and send the entire piece, with your details, to the email address above.

Note: Although Waiting for an Echo accepts unsolicited submissions, many of the texts it publishes are from authors who have been specially invited by the blog’s editors.

Submission guidelines

General guidelines

Original texts: The texts published on the blog must be of your own authorship and must not have been previously published, unless specifically indicated (e.g. translations of previously published articles).

Timeliness: The books, chapters and articles that are reviewed, critiqued or commented on in the blog must have been published in the past two years by a university or academic press. Texts will not be featured in Endnotes or In the margin unless they are related to texts published in this period. Any exceptions must be justified and presented as a special request to the blog’s editors.

Rights and archive: Authors give permission for the blog’s editors to publish each text and create a permanent digital archive.

Use: Texts will be made available to users and readers under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Word length: Texts should be between 500 and 1000 words, except in extraordinary circumstances.

Style: Every text published on the blog must be clear and coherent, and should highlight whatever it is that would attract a reader’s attention with regards to a book, chapter, article, issue, news, or situation studied or generated in universities.

As the blog is an open, democratic space, the opinions expressed in each piece, as well as its strengths and failings, will be the responsibility of the authors and will not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, or of the university under whose banner the blog is published.

Editing: The texts published in Waiting for an Echo will be revised by a copy editor, who will be responsible for applying house style and preparing the piece for publication. Likewise, a graphic designer will provide an illustration to accompany the blog entry. Authors should accept the suggestions or decisions of the editors in this respect, in order to facilitate publication of the text.

Selection process: All texts submitted to the editors of Waiting for an Echo will be evaluated in terms of relevance, validity, and quality of writing, and these criteria will be used to decide whether or not it is to be published. Submitting a proposal or a piece does not guarantee that it will be published; the blog’s editors will make the final decision.

Structure

Title: Ensure that the title is concise. As well as directly expressing the idea of the piece, it should be original and creative and grab the readers’ attention.

Body: You are free to choose any form, theme or narrative technique you wish. However, we suggest that you try to engage the reader from the beginning, either using a quotation, a question, a well-known fact, or an anecdote that illustrates the idea or objective of the text.

The language should be clear, using as little showy rhetoric as possible. As the texts are short, avoid overly complicated arguments, unless this forms part of a deliberate writing strategy. The narrative should also be coherent. Attempt to structure your text around three main elements: introduction, body and conclusion.

Citing source texts: If you are writing a review, a critical piece, or an analysis of a book, chapter or article, you should always cite the source text using the DOI (digital object identifier). If the text does not have a DOI, indicate the website where the publisher or journal can be found.

Avoid at all costs including academic citations using the well-known styles (APA, Chicago, MLA, IEEE, Vancouver, and so on), but if it is absolutely necessary to avoid problems or accusations, do so. For example, if you include a quote, indicate the name of the author and the name of the work (or part of it if the title is very long).

Images, videos and hyperlinks: If you would like to include images (photos, graphics, tables etc.), videos or hyperlinks in your text that add relevant information and make the piece more interactive, please bear in mind the following:

Ensure the images are high resolution (minimum 300dpi) and are attached to the text, or provide the URL where the image can be found in the text. If the images are not your own, try where possible to ensure that they are open access or free use, and in any case include the source or author.

Include the URL of the required content in square brackets just after the key word that is to be a hyperlink, so that when the reader clicks on the word they will be taken directly to the relevant information.

Note: You may add a caption to an image or video as supplementary material, as long as it contains information that is not found in the text. Remember to indicate the source or author.

Author profile: The name of the author and the institution they are associated with will appear at the beginning of published texts, while a brief profile of the author will appear at the end. The profile consists of two lines highlighting academic details and, if desired, some personal information (including email address). For example:

The sharpest cry of Latin American film

By Maria Jones, Cardiff University

Maria is a research professor in film and television in Cardiff. She has directed various short films for the BBC and other European and Latin American broadcasters. She leads the FRS research group at Cardiff University and is a keen photographer and trekker. Email: maria.jones@cardiff.ac.uk